I feel a lot better about our recent trip. We saw some cool stuff. And we spent some nice time together. The latter part of it was exhausting, but that was also expected.
After a week of reflection, I realize that the trip was something of a closing, not opening activity. Which means, I’m in the opening of something right now.
We openly embraced this trip as something of a “last chance” to all go on a vacation as a family. Knowing people with older kids, that isn’t exactly true. We still vacation with Amy’s parents and my dad so I guess it can last your whole life. But, Nathalie will be making her trip to her college next summer, barring some radical shift in her life plan. This time next year, I’ll be trying to talk myself into driving across country or whatever. If she goes to school in Boston, then she and her stuff will need to get there, as opposed to what monument to see in Rome. Nathalie really enjoyed the trip, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear her plan her junior year abroad in Rome, Milan, Turin, or wherever. Seriously, she could learn Italian in 6 months of serious study, knowing that she would be immersed for a school year following.
A thought on my own Italian study. I knew a lot more Italian than I needed to know for a trip. I think I might continue to take courses because I enjoy it. It’s a great exercise for my particular brain. And judging from Nicole, Mike and Christine, our familial brain has a “knack” for it. I’m not saying we are idiot savants but clearly there is something in the wiring that allows us to not be intimidated by the prospect of stumbling along with the language. As well, there seems to be a higher than average ability to internalize vocabulary and phrases in the short term. And, while it might be easier for me than, say, Amy, it is still exhausting at times.
I didn’t get many opportunities to speak Italian, which surprised me. My neighbor is a Columbian woman and she asked me about this yesterday, as we exchanged pleasantries. I told her that I was surprised that in one place, I walked to the counter and the server said, “What can I get you?” Never even a pause before completely flipping the bit to English. My neighbor said, “Really. You don’t even look like a gringo,” which, oddly, made me feel better. Apart from hello, good-bye, thank you – you can feel pretty good that English will be okay. I could not say what it might be like outside of the tourism industry because we were squarely in the middle of that.
So closing this chapter is a theme for me. I realized some of this as I spent the week back at work. My team has been dysfunctional for a long time. That’s harder and harder to take. I just don’t want to be there. That’s not as simple a conclusion as it sounds as the Catholic guilt (you’ ought be thankful you even have a job) and the Puritan work ethic (work harder at it) combine with the more visceral conclusion that this is not a sustainable position.
At the risk of going to deep here, I hardly ever think about my heart. It works fine. Apart from a yearly check up, I go about my life like everyone else. But there is a part of my sub-conscious brain that is aware that my time could be limited. Orthat my normally functional time might be limited. I know people who literally cannot fly because of the risk of blood clots, for example. And lots of people get through life with bigger, more difficult handicaps. For me, I am literally unaffected. However, I know that I have 8 years of 15-20 year ticket punched before I have to become medically unconscious and wake up, intubated, with an incision on my chest.
I think that weighs into my thinking about things like “toughing out” another year in a bad job.
I also think that we are living in a time where there is no concept of “retirement”. I’m not talking politically here. I’m saying that we, or I , do not have a good mental picture of what it’s like to be 60 or 70 years old in the future.
What does this sea change mean for me? I don’t know yet. I know that my job, even apart from my present team, is in jeopardy. Software development is not bound by political borders. There is nothing to say that American-made software is even distinguishable from Chinese or Indian software. Who makes the software you are using right now? If it is IE then I guarantee you that it is in part Indian-made.
In the middle of writing this, I spoke to my homeboy, Mark. He shed some light on my predicament by asking a simple question. What do you want to change the most? Or something like that. And the answer, after a little bit of thought, was clear. I want more control. It’s not that my job is bad. I’ve liked similar jobs. The difference was that I had more control. I had bosses that said things like, “you just do your thing and you let me worry about reporting it to management.” The uncertainty in the industry is less about predicting the next twist and turn in the software development road. It is more personal to me to know that I am not some kind of flotsam in water being affected by the changing current and crazy, unpredictable weather, later washing up on some beach as little more than debris, unwelcome pollution.
In the past, lack of control lead to two things, often, simultaneously: Consolidation and research. I can live with both those things. In particular, I love consolidation. I love having less stuff. That’s a bit harder to envision as a father of nearly grown up kids and a husband, but not impossible. And research is what I do. At the close of this week, that is not a bad place to be.
